Total mercury released to the environment by human activities

Streets, David G.; Horowitz, Hannah M.; Jacob, Daniel J.; Lu, Zifeng; Levin, Leonard; ter Schure, Arnout F. H.; Sunderland, Elsie M.

doi:10.1021/acs.est.7b00451

Title: Total mercury released to the environment by human activities

Journal Article · Thu Apr 27 00:00:00 EDT 2017 · Environmental Science and Technology

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.7b00451· OSTI ID:1364136

^[1]; Horowitz, Hannah M. ^[2]; Jacob, Daniel J. ^[2]; Lu, Zifeng ^[1]; Levin, Leonard ^[3]; ter Schure, Arnout F. H. ^[3];

^[2]

Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA (United States)
Electric Power Research Institute, Palo Alto, CA (United States)

Here, we estimate that a cumulative total of 1.5 (1.0–2.8) Tg (teragrams, or million tonnes) of mercury (Hg) have been released by human activities up to 2010, 73% of which was released after 1850. Of this liberated Hg, 470 Gg (gigagrams, or thousand tonnes) was emitted directly into the air, and 74% of the air emissions were elemental Hg. Cumulatively, about 1.1 Tg were released to land and water bodies. Though annual releases of Hg have been relatively stable since 1880 at 8 ± 2 Gg, except for wartime, the distributions of those releases among source types, world regions, and environmental media have changed dramatically. Production of Hg accounts for 27% of cumulative Hg releases to the environment, followed by silver mining (24%) and chemicals manufacturing (12%). North America (30%), Europe (27%), and Asia (16%) have experienced the largest releases. Biogeochemical modeling shows a 3.2-fold increase in the atmospheric burden relative to 1850 and a contemporary atmospheric reservoir of 4570 Mg, both of which agree well with observational constraints. We find that approximately 40% (390 Gg) of the Hg discarded to land and water must be sequestered at contaminated sites to maintain consistency with recent declines in atmospheric Hg concentrations.

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Research Organization:: Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI); USDOE

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-06CH11357

OSTI ID:: 1364136

Journal Information:: Environmental Science and Technology, Vol. 51, Issue 11; ISSN 0013-936X

Publisher:: American Chemical Society (ACS)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 238 works

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